Urban empowerment

摘要

This paper describes and demonstrates a creative way to implement Service Learning while assisting the urban community to improve visibility through empowering them to participate in the information age. 'Service Learning combines community service with classroom instruction, focusing on critical, reflective thinking as well as personal and civic responsibility.'[1].To make Service Learning effective, there must be integration into College curriculum and sustainability. This paper will explain how a program was developed with just that objective in mind incorporating a Federal grant supported by a local bank that collaborated with the University of Cincinnati to benefit both students and the local community. As part of the Service Learning program of the Web Publishing class, which I teach, students learned Web development from a technical perspective by learning and writing XHTML code. Students also gained interpersonal communication skills and awareness of civic engagement. They worked with community partners to create websites for their small businesses and provide other electronic access for them so they would not be left out of the digital age. In addition, sustainability was maintained because of the prospects for future maintenance and further development of the websites to enhance functionality and provide continuation for the students as they pursue further courses within the Web Development sequence. This is a good example of a successful use of Service Learning that could be replicated in other institutions.